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Public Domain from Outer Space
Black_by_Pubic_Deman writes "It is a work of art that truly represents the nadir of film making; a movie so bad that it's good. It has been labelled 'The Worst Movie Ever' by the Golden Turkey Awards and is also the winner of two notable Razzies. Ed Wood's classic and every Slashdot reader's favorite movie Plan 9 from Outer Space is now in the Public Domain and available as a free download thanks to the fine folks over at Archive.org."
The Plan 9 OS (which really was named after the film :-) is under an Open Source license. It's a weird one nobody else uses but it is certified Open, AFAIK.
Not quite Public Domain but good enough for most purposes.
would have to be Gay Niggers From Outer Space.
The GNAA put out a torrent of a VHS rip for those curious how bad a movie can be.
It might have rock-bottom production values and a below-b-grade script, but thinking about it I don't it's any less enjoyable a movie to watch than Spiderman 2 or *other random hollywood movie*.
It's worth watching just to know what everyone's on about.
Oh, and there's a great scene where EW meets Orson Welles, played by Vincent D'Onofrio, except that Welles' voice is uncannily dubbed by Maurice la Marche (Kif & the Robot Devil in Futurama, The Brain in Pinky & The Brain, etc.)
Why make one, http://isohunt.com/download.php?mode=bt&id=4612267 there already is one ;)
sadly, it only has one seed and 2 leachers and frankly, it might not be the exact same as the version that was available freely...
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Sorry, the body count after the filming of Manos: The Hands of Fate is highly exaggerated Obligatory Wikipedia article meant to be a cite. A more reliable article than Wikipedia.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052077/
Why make one, http://isohunt.com/download.php?mode=bt&id=4612267 there already is one ;)
sadly, it only has one seed and 2 leachers and frankly, it might not be the exact same as the version that was available freely...
No, the truly sad thing is that even though this movie is now in the public domain that isohunt link is probably still illegal due to its source.
Somebody is going to have to mirror the Archive.org version since they don't claim any copyright on their copy and hope they got it from the original source.
Oh dear.
You have no idea.
An MST3K of it? They couldn't do it. There was nothing they could do to it to make it (better|worse|funnier|stupider|more appalling). It would be like taking your absolute favorite meal *ever*, then adding caramel to it to "make it taste better".
Remember - we are talking a movie where Bela Lugosi died, and was replaced by a chiropractor - younger, taller, and blond - as "the Ghoul Man", who played his part crouched down with a cape over his face, so people wouldn't notice.
And the Octopus battle scene! This was conducted in a public park, at night (because they didn't have a stage, a budget, or a permit) with a *stolen* rubber octopus. Unfortunately, they forgot to take the motor(s) that made the octopus run, so "our hero" had to "battle" the octopus, in a shallow pool of water, under a car's headlights, and move the limbs of the octopus himself. It's really a classic scene.
As is the scene where the giant zombie knocks over the obviously cardboard tombstone.
As is the scene where they are "flying" in the "airplane" - the airplane never moves, but they bounce in their chairs to simulate flight.
As is... well, just about all of the movie, in fact.
And how can you beat this quote from the movie - "Future events such as these will affect us in the future" - absolutely classic!
Nope. Sorry. Pass over that geek card, son, and walk away. Just walk away.
And watch out for those future events.
We are the Music Makers, and We are the Dreamers of Dreams...
If it's in the public domain it should't matter where you got it from...
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
THIS SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN MODDED FLAMEBAIT. This is a quote from Tim Burton's movie "Ed Wood", a dramatic account of the life of the director of Plan 9 From Outer Space.
The joke here is that Bela Lugosi (of Dracula fame, and whose last role was in Plan 9) was constantly being asked questions about Boris Karloff (Frankenstein, and a somewhat rival), and it drove the already irritable old man into a angry frenzy. In the movie, he goes from happy to sign an autograph for a fan to nearly knocking the guy's head off.
It was hilarious.
Here is an interesting tidbit. In its day, that film was considered communist propaganda for making a common man the hero and a banker the villian. Now, the entertainment industry would have us believe that the public domain is a communist plot, and that "intellectual property" (pure vapor) is worth more than tangible things. Well, it's not!
In the near future people might literally ask, "Public domain? What's that?" and only historians will be able to explain the concept. It will be as extinct as the Dodo Bird.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
Who keeps modding these comments down? "Gay Niggers From Outer Space is a REAL MOVIE", and asking which one worse is on-topic. To answer your question: It's bad, but not even as bad as Plan 9 From Outer Space.
You heard me right, if forced at gunpoint to choose between watching Plan 9 and Gay Niggers, I'd watch Gay Niggers From Outer Space. God help me if it ever comes to that.
Plan9
Battlefield Earth is the worst movie ever.
I asked them this very question recently.
Here's your answer:
Speed Demos Archive - Lots of speed runs!
Actually that scene was from "Bride of the Monster", which was on MST3K. And you forgot the best bit, after he fights the octopus it explodes like an atomic bomb (if you saw the movie "Ed Wood" this is what that guy that owned the meat plant insisted on). That's followed by Harvey B. Dunn's classic line "He tampered in God's domain."
I have made the MPEG2 1.78 GB version of this file available via bittorrent. You can download the torrent from the following locations:
6 86368294eb5b9226a60534a442b497351c8b7c5
e ntdetails&id=356075
http://www.bogaa.org/details/185874
http://www.bitenova.org/index.php?idx=details&id=
http://www.torrentspy.com/directory.asp?mode=torr
http://www.mininova.org/tor/73675
I distribute the MPEG2 files from Archive.org via http://torrents.pdmdb.org/ but can bet that Slashdot would kill my webserver too. Hopefully it can at least handle the tracker.
BUT archive.org does allow copyright holders to make a dedication to the public by a creative commons license. After archive.org recovers, check the details, and if there is a "creative commons license" link, click on it.
http://www.torrentreactor.to/torrents/view_56086
How to use coral cache: http://slashdot.org.nyud.net:8090/~oscartheduck
Bono didn't cover everything, not by a long shot.
For instance, the original Night of the Living Dead (1968) has never been under copyright. Never, because back then, you had to put a copyright notice on your film or it was automatically in the public domain. NOTLD became a wild success, and sadly the original creators never saw much money from it.
No copyright law, extension or otherwise, has since fixed this problem. George Romero talks about this on pretty much every DVD commentary he's done.
It's maddening that something like NOTLD never made its creators any money, and yet Disney still rakes in billions from movies it made 70 years ago.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
In short, this film does not have an expired copyright; archive.org has obtained a general waiver of enforcement (and if they are lucky, they've obtained it from the true copyright holder).
Ask a question about a crazy legal regime...
What seems to happen here is that a person uploads a movie to Archive claiming that it's public domain and Archive does whatever research they do and decide whether to distribute it.
Another post points out that the Copyright Office database says Plan 9 was registered in 1958 and renewed in 1986, so the reasonable assumption would be that it's still covered unless the owner places it in Public Domain.
Archive's page for the movie says the uploader's site is at www.k-otic.com, a site which is basically an uploader's blog which does claim to have uploaded it.
The person who uploaded it doesn't seem to really do any research on movies' copyright status before uploading; (s)he says in a post about another upload that:
This does not really lead me to believe that the uploader contacted whoever owns the rights to Plan 9 and arranged for the film to be placed in the public domain.Summary: there's no reason to believe Plan 9 actually is Public Domain, since the first person to make the claim (the uploader) admits that (s)he has no way to be sure about the status of the movies (s)he uploads and Archive gives no evidence to support the claim except the uploader's original assertion.
-robin